John 12:1-11

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:28:46
Clint Loveall
Hi friends. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. Continuing through Gospel of John, starting the 12th chapter today, a little bit of, especially here in the first half of the chapter. A continuation of the Lazarus story that we’ve been going through in chapter 11, although it kind of changes a little bit. So, yesterday there was some question and, and now the idea of Passover is kind of hanging over the text.

00:00:28:46 – 00:00:53:06
Clint Loveall
Will Jesus go to the Passover? Will he not? And now we have a couple stories as we wait for the answer of that question. So we’ll jump in here. Verse one. Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, to the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

00:00:53:11 – 00:01:18:06
Clint Loveall
Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, and anointed Jesus feet, wiping them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, the one who was about to betray him, said, why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii? And the money given to the poor?

00:01:18:10 – 00:01:40:03
Clint Loveall
He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and he kept the common purse, and used to steal what was put in it. Jesus said, leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you. You do not always have me.

00:01:40:08 – 00:02:08:54
Clint Loveall
But, it is worth noting, as we move into this story, that in other gospels, the identity of Mary, of or of this woman, who I believe in, in one case may not even be named, is not is different here we we have a clear identification with Mary, the sister of Lazarus, sister of Martha. But we’ve already we met her in the 11th chapter.

00:02:08:54 – 00:02:38:40
Clint Loveall
We know who this is. And John specifically identifies her as the one who anoints or washes. Jesus here. And this this act. Two things. In the next chapter, Jesus is going to perform a similar act for his disciples, and we’ll talk about that when we get to chapter 13. And then, of course, there is the extravagance.

00:02:38:40 – 00:03:05:24
Clint Loveall
There’s the gratitude. This I don’t it’s not fair to say this is a rest, but in the Gospel of John Michael, because John hasn’t been difficult, we’ve not been. But this is one of those moments that I think you do want to pause and and look at differently. This is a beautiful story about this woman who does this extravagant, amazing act of service for Jesus.

00:03:05:29 – 00:03:38:51
Clint Loveall
And yes, there’s some other stuff in it, but I don’t think you want to read over this without seeing what a beautiful moment of adoration it is that that she would kneel before Jesus, that she would wash and anoint his feet, that she would use her own hair. This is this is a profound moment of how much Mary loves Jesus, how indebted she is, how grateful, how devoted.

00:03:39:59 – 00:03:47:53
Clint Loveall
And I think it’s one of those stories you could read past, but I. I don’t think you should. I think we need to savor this for a minute.

00:03:47:58 – 00:04:14:24
Michael Gewecke
It is a opportunity within the narrative for us to recognize that it’s not all just seeing Jesus for who he is. And all of this that we’ve talked about up to this point. Yeah, the idea of seeing the signs and believing many believe I’ve or the Jews get worked up, and then they move into, greater planning and seeking after Jesus’s life.

00:04:14:24 – 00:04:41:58
Michael Gewecke
I do think that there is a moment here where we get to go behind the scenes, per se, and not behind the scenes, just into the place of power, which is really where we were yesterday. Right where we were in the middle of the scheming of the religious leaders as they really put a price on Jesus’s head. They said, you know, we’re going to seek him out now in this story, you have Jesus celebrating Passover with people that he loves.

00:04:42:03 – 00:05:15:55
Michael Gewecke
And and John makes it clear in this story who also love him deep and meaningful relational connection. And I think, Clint, to be honest, this story remains as uncomfortable today as it was in the day that it was told, and in some ways maybe more uncomfortable, at least in the original world in which this story was told, there was this conception of washing feet as a thing that you did when you came to a celebration or someone’s house that was just a part of the cultural reality.

00:05:15:55 – 00:05:48:48
Michael Gewecke
Because when you went somewhere, you walked on dirty roads and so dirty feet were a part of that, that story. You know, today when people think of dirty feet, that they don’t think of it in the same way. But that being said, then, the idea of a woman using her hair, something so intimate that would have been a cultural taboo, spending so much money, it gets actually told in a very short passage in multiple different ways about how scandal’s the price was for this, this luxury, for this sign of devotion.

00:05:48:57 – 00:06:16:23
Michael Gewecke
So it this is an uncomfortable story. And I think in some ways, John is showing us this story within the context of real, meaningful relationship. That’s what makes it so beautiful. Is not that just a random person comes and blesses Jesus socks off. It’s the fact that this woman whose life has been transformed, whose imagination of the world has been completely turned upside down, a woman who sees Jesus for who he is.

00:06:16:28 – 00:06:40:01
Michael Gewecke
Money is no object. Personal embarrassment is no object. The things that would have been boundaries before now becomes simple and broad paths for the adoration, the worship that the celebration, the gratitude that she’s expressing for Jesus and His presence in their life. And I do think you’re right. There’s there’s something simple. That simple does not mean not deep.

00:06:40:15 – 00:07:02:28
Michael Gewecke
There’s something, just on its surface, beautiful about this story and the other details of it, I think maybe provide us different lenses of it, but it at its core is a is a beautiful story of love in the context of relationship and the awareness that Mary sees something about who Jesus is, and she expresses it with the way that she lives.

00:07:02:33 – 00:07:33:18
Clint Loveall
Agreed. And then I think underneath that there are some interesting devotional kind of ideas, right? What what do we offer Jesus? In what ways do we serve? How grateful are we? You may not know this, and forgive me if you do, but a denarius about a day’s wage sold 300 denarii. You’re looking at somewhere around a year’s wages or in the neighborhood of ten months wages, which is an extravagant number in Jesus day.

00:07:33:18 – 00:07:54:24
Clint Loveall
And in this context. And so what? What do we offer Jesus? In what ways do we give to him? And do we give the best? And there’s this interesting line here. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume, you know, again, is this in the text or is this something we take from the text? I’d say probably more of the second.

00:07:54:28 – 00:08:24:19
Clint Loveall
But the idea that in serving Jesus, Mary’s devotion carries into other places that there’s evidence of it, that it colors her surroundings or context. And, you know, that’s an interesting and I think, a helpful way to talk about our own discipleship that we we bless others in blessing Christ, that what we do for Jesus has an effect on the world around us.

00:08:24:19 – 00:09:00:37
Clint Loveall
And hopefully a good effect. And then the contrast here, interestingly enough, you have Jesus kind of at the center of the story, and then you have these two other characters, Mary and Judas. Mary has served Jesus dramatically. And Judas, we’re told, is going to betray him and takes for himself. So Mary gives, Judas takes, and he does that under the guise of, you know, we could have given this money to the poor.

00:09:00:50 – 00:09:31:18
Clint Loveall
And again, if we’re going to ask what this passage might mean for us, Michael, I think there’s an interesting balancing act in the faith. In the church. We run into this all the time, right? What what is worth doing and what is mission and how do we balance a moment of adoration and praise, maybe the purchase of something at the church or for the church, or in worship with that other calling to serve people?

00:09:31:22 – 00:10:02:34
Clint Loveall
And interestingly here, Jesus doesn’t criticize Mary for that. He he understands Mary’s action to be genuine, to be heartfelt, to be generous, and praises her for it. And Judas lives on the other side of the fence. He is selfish. He is thinking of himself and ultimately, again, John’s not being on keeping secrets. Judas is going to betray Jesus.

00:10:02:34 – 00:10:09:12
Clint Loveall
And so we have this very profound contrast between the other characters in the story.

00:10:09:12 – 00:10:44:21
Michael Gewecke
I make no mistake, the the telling of this story only serves to emphasize the depth and depravity of Judas’s betrayal. You have. On the one hand, Mary, who is this woman giving of absolutely everything? I mean, she’s pouring out not just her finance, but she’s using her own hair to clean Jesus’s feet. She’s giving of herself in the midst of this act of of care, of worship within the context of John, I think would even be a fair word.

00:10:44:25 – 00:11:04:46
Michael Gewecke
And then Judas, we just see in a very, very stark light, is obviously the one who is using and abusing this to his own privilege. I mean, he would love for that money to be in the purse. Why? John says very clear. Not because he cares about the poor, but because he was a thief. He kept the common person.

00:11:04:46 – 00:11:34:55
Michael Gewecke
He would steal what went into it. So I John leaves nothing to the imagination in that way. There’s no interpretive sort of gap to say, oh, maybe Judas had ten multiple intentions, if that’s there. John wasn’t interested in portraying it that way. Here we have two characters, and they’re both on opposite ends of the spectrum. And I just think it’s worth noting how John tells the story so as to emphasize both the magnification of Mary and also the depravity of Judas.

00:11:34:55 – 00:11:56:04
Michael Gewecke
And they’re both sort of jammed into a text like this to make sure that we know that in Jesus’s inner circle, there’s diversity within that, that very close and privileged group. Everyone’s not on the same page. And so Mary gets lifted up and Judas, we’re told by John, he’s a thief, but he’s still in the circle.

00:11:56:09 – 00:12:28:28
Clint Loveall
And I want to before we move on to the last part of the texts we will cover today, I just want to say a word about this last line. Verse eight here you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. That’s one of those verses that in context really sets a message in the story, but unfortunately it’s been used occasionally in the church to, to justify the idea that we don’t have complete responsibility to the poor.

00:12:28:28 – 00:12:51:36
Clint Loveall
Like, well, we can we can always do the poor, help the poor, or we can do this other thing. And I think you just have to be you have to be very careful about that. When you’re pulling one line from one text to justify something, you know, that’s in a different setting, in different contexts. I just I think you have to be cautious with that.

00:12:51:36 – 00:13:14:04
Clint Loveall
And I say that just because I’ve, I’ve sort of heard this verse used at times, and I know in other times it has been used in the history of the church to justify not doing something. And that is certainly not how it’s functioning here, nor do I think in any way, shape or form it’s given as a kind of instruction along those lines for later.

00:13:14:16 – 00:13:33:22
Michael Gewecke
Well, and I think what’s so critical to that and the I want to point out the sentence right before that, she brought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. To whatever extent we want to talk about this being a beautiful moment, maybe a respite, maybe an opportunity to see this beautiful act of worship.

00:13:33:27 – 00:14:01:06
Michael Gewecke
John, actually, I don’t want to over glorify that, because John, before the end of this section is very clear that Jesus is doing what Jesus always does. Jesus knows the future and a little bit like, you know, dropping an ice cube inside your hot drink. Jesus is going to say no. Ultimately, she’s buying this so that she can anoint my body when I die.

00:14:01:06 – 00:14:33:48
Michael Gewecke
And that is, of course, a stark, stark statement in the midst of a quiet, serene, relational moment. Here, Jesus is bringing the light, the harsh light of reality, which, of course, he knows. And the gospel John, Jesus is always aware of what has happened and is going to happen. And in this moment here, I think that this text makes it very clear to us that Jesus sees the purpose that lies beyond this moment, and it’s a stark and difficult purpose.

00:14:33:48 – 00:15:08:24
Michael Gewecke
He’s he’s already set his face to the task that needs done. And interestingly, Mary, with all of her good intentions, has done something that is even in Jesus’s Worthing here preparation for the ultimate act that Jesus is going to be willing to do for them. And that is Clint sandwiched in the midst of this context in which there’s a meal with the man who was just dead and resurrected and had a kind of celebration of that, and the Passover God bringing the people out from their captivity and their their spiritual death in Egypt.

00:15:08:29 – 00:15:23:03
Michael Gewecke
It’s interesting here that Jesus is going to then at the end, reference his own death. He’s going to bring that and tie it all together to make sure that they see that it’s all happening at the same time in this very, very poignant moment.

00:15:23:07 – 00:15:45:40
Clint Loveall
Let’s let’s finish out a couple more verses here. Some interesting things. And this does kind of put a little bit of a period on the story. We’ve been following through chapter 11. So jumping back in at verse nine here, when the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

00:15:45:45 – 00:16:14:24
Clint Loveall
So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to the death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus. So as far as I know, Michael had correct me if I’m wrong, I think John is the only one who who gives us this detail. That not only here is there an intention to get rid of Jesus.

00:16:14:24 – 00:16:39:54
Clint Loveall
They now think we should get rid of Lazarus to Lazarus. People have heard this story. People are coming to see this man who was reported to have been dead and now lives. They’ve heard the stories. They want to see the one who has done it, but they also want to see Lazarus. And because of that, the chief priests plan not just to get rid of Jesus, but they they find themselves saying, we need to get rid of Lazarus as well.

00:16:39:54 – 00:17:04:37
Clint Loveall
So the idea of a conspiracy, the idea of a plot is growing here. Bad leads to bad. And now, they’re willing to, I, you know, there’s no indication here that they believe Lazarus has done anything wrong. He’s just. He he, by his presence is gaining interest for the one that they want to get rid of.

00:17:04:37 – 00:17:14:51
Clint Loveall
And so they now, kind of I we’ve seen John do this before, kind of heaping up charges against them. They now are willing to kill the bystander as well.

00:17:14:56 – 00:17:42:48
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. I think the key language there comes in verse 11, and it’s because of the account of him that many of the Jews were, and this is a keyword deserving and believing in Jesus. That is the ultimate threat is the deserving. It’s the idea that that Jews are no longer going to give the power to the established religious leadership, and that Lazarus represents someone who’s living a new life.

00:17:42:48 – 00:18:16:19
Michael Gewecke
I mean, if you want to talk about conversion and transformation, Lazarus is a person who has been converted from death to life. And that represents an unacceptable turn in the story because of what it might mean for the the access to power and for the fact that the people are literally deserving that kind of language. I think John is tipping to us the weight and the scale and the reality of what’s happening here, that that what’s at stake is everything is the stability.

00:18:16:19 – 00:18:33:36
Michael Gewecke
It’s the security. It’s the it’s the people who have been given chief privilege and interpretation of, of the law and what God wants that stands now to be completely undone by the power of this resurrection. Lord. And and that’s going to change everything.

00:18:33:36 – 00:18:58:14
Clint Loveall
Yeah. I, I do want to maybe address one thing that’s a translation thing. The word deserting here in Greek means something like they were leaving or they were departing and deserting certainly gets to the idea of that. But I think we want to be careful, because it’s not like they were leaving Judaism, right, to go to Christianity. That doesn’t exist yet.

00:18:58:19 – 00:19:32:31
Clint Loveall
They were leaving the Pharisees and turning to Jesus. They were leaving one source of authority and going to another. So in a sense, they’re deserting the leaders. Perhaps, but but deserting has a connotation, as if they were dropping out of something. And I don’t think at all that that’s what John is trying to tell us. They were simply turning away from the chief priests and turning to Jesus, which is exactly why the chief priests want to get rid of Jesus.

00:19:32:31 – 00:19:48:20
Clint Loveall
And now they are willing to include Lazarus. So, it’s not that that’s a bad translation, but I’m not qualified to say that. I just think the word deserting might have some connotations for people that I don’t think the text actually means in the way we might read it.

00:19:48:25 – 00:20:11:58
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s well said. And I also think that we we miss how large of a transformation that would be for people, you know, that that absolutely. Maybe the closest you could get if you’ve been a Christian for some time or maybe your whole life and maybe you’ve attended one or maybe two churches, but you know, you’ve you’ve been a person there, a fixture in that place.

00:20:12:03 – 00:20:39:32
Michael Gewecke
And then one day it comes to you that you can’t be there anymore for any reason. And you go to another place. You might know how hard that is, how unbelievably difficult it is to extricate yourself from one community to another. Well, what what is being asked here is, are these people willing to leave behind the person who was at the bar mitzvah of their son, or the person who was with them at the birth of their children, who who married them?

00:20:39:32 – 00:20:42:27
Michael Gewecke
I mean, there’s even deep relational meaning here.

00:20:42:27 – 00:21:01:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah, even more so the person they have always thought to be an authority on the things of God, I mean, right, the people that they’ve trusted to interpret to them how to live a godly life, and they now find themself drawn to something else. And John would argue something better.

00:21:01:08 – 00:21:20:29
Michael Gewecke
Right? And so deserving. Maybe not in the first sense of that word, but but I think in the force of it, the power of what is represented by a person’s change as they turn to the revelation of Christ. And they see in the life of Lazarus something that may lead them to a different kind of life for themselves.

00:21:20:40 – 00:21:39:57
Michael Gewecke
John is painting this picture. And by the way, make no mistake, the reference that we have right here, just in passing to the chief priest, is very much a tone setter that that, you know, hey, the the stakes here are ramping up because we’re talking about the top of the top and we’ll see where the story takes us.

00:21:39:57 – 00:21:40:13
Michael Gewecke
Yeah.

00:21:40:13 – 00:21:59:03
Clint Loveall
I want to put in a little commercial for tomorrow. We have an important story, an important turning point in the Gospel of John. Kind of a unique usage of it in the Gospel of John as well. So hope you can join us tomorrow, because I do think, it’s an important it’s an important part of John’s gospel.

00:21:59:07 – 00:22:00:33
Michael Gewecke
Sounds great. See them tomorrow. The.